And They're Off: 2007 World Series of Poker Bracelet Race Begins
By Bob Pajich
With 55 events, the 38th
World Series of Poker is the biggest one yet. With each event having its own storylines and characters, and textures and colors, the
WSOP is really a smorgasbord for poker fans. You like stud, it's there. You like H.O.R.S.E., it's there. And, of course, there's plenty of no-limit hold'em to satisfy all poker cravings.
For those who can't make it to Las Vegas for the
WSOP, don't worry.
Card Player and CardPlayer.com have your back with tournament reports, updates, videos, feature stories, and interviews with many of the winners and top pros who are playing in the events. This is our first installment.
The
WSOP started on June 1 and will run until July 17. That's a lot of poker. We hope you're hungry.
New Kid in Town
Steve Billirakis Wins $5,000 Mixed Hold'em Event and First Open-Event Bracelet of 2007
By Ryan Lucchesi
Steve Billirakis made history by winning the first $5,000 mixed hold'em event in
World Series of Poker history; he also became the youngest person ever to win a bracelet, at 21 years and 10 days old. Billirakis won $526,387 by outlasting 450 other players. He is 25 days younger than Jeff Madsen was when he won his first bracelet last year.
John Younger busted out on the first hand of play at the final table, and Jon Turner was the next to exit. He had doubled up twice, but the third time was not the charm. The next set of eliminations went by quickly, with Kirk Morrison, Roger McDow, and Fred Berger falling in succession. With four players left, lady luck decided to turn her back on Steve Paul-Ambrose when he ran into Billirakis' pocket aces and was sent to the rail.
Billirakis took a large chip lead into the heads-up match with Greg Mueller. On the final hand, Mueller raised to $200,000 and Billirakis reraised to $300,000. Mueller moved all in for $25,000 more and Billirakis called. Mueller showed the 5
4
and Billirakis flipped over the K
2
. The board was dealt Q
J
2
8
Q
and Billirakis won the first bracelet of the 2007
WSOP. Mueller took home $328,554 for second place.
Luck of O'Leary
O'Leary Gets Off to a Slow Start, Then Pours on the All-In Aggression in $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Event
By Ryan Lucchesi
"All of a sudden, I feel very tired. I'm running on fumes, to say the least," said Ciaran O'Leary.
Despite only getting two hours of sleep, O'Leary was very upbeat. A gold bracelet will do that for you, as will $727,172 in prize money. O'Leary needed neither of these to appreciate his victory in the $1,500 no-limit hold'em event at the
World Series of Poker.
The event featured the largest non-main-event field in the history of the
WSOP, 2,998 players. Arriving at the final table was no small accomplishment.
"I was completely and utterly card-dead," said O'Leary, who went 19 hands before acting at the final table. He then came to life with aggressive play and colorful celebrations.
An example of his aggressive play came with action threehanded, when he took control of a pot with pocket sevens even though both an ace and a king hit the board. He instantly raised Alex Jacob to $600,000 after Jacob tried to represent a flopped ace when only a 4 had hit him.
O'Leary and Paul Evans' head-up match didn't last long. The tournament ended on the second hand after O'Leary flopped topped pair with the K
10
. Evans, holding middle pair, quickly called O'Leary's all-in raise. O'Leary's kings held up, sending Evans home with second-place prize money of $450,150.
A Golden Anniversary Present
Mike Spegal Wins $1,500 Pot-Limit Hold'em Event
By Ryan Lucchesi
At times, life gets in the way of life. To Mike Spegal, this statement makes a lot of sense. Spegal won his first gold bracelet in the $1,500 pot-limit hold'em event at the
World Series of Poker. It also happened to be the evening of his nine-year wedding anniversary. He now has $252,290 to celebrate the occasion.
With his wife at his side, Spegal defeated an impressive final table that included Marco Traniello, Eric "Rizen" Lynch, Jon Friedberg, and Gavin Smith. This was after Spegal waded his way through a field of 781 players. "I just wanted to play the best cards I possibly [could]. I wasn't going to try to bluff the pot. I wasn't going to try to bluff these players at what they do for a living," said Spegal.
Spegal had a lead heading into heads-up play, and he steadily increased his stack. Smith was able to become a factor once again by picking up two large pots after dinner. Spegal stalled Smith's ascent when he picked up a $630,000 pot and Smith had only $415,000 left in front of him. He moved it all in on the following hand and Spegal called. Spegal flipped over the A
10
. Smith turned over pocket fives, and the board came J
6
3
Q
K
. Smith was eliminated in second place and took home $155,645 in prize money. Spegal won the gold bracelet, and his wife was the one to present it to him.
Tom Schneider Wins Omaha/Seven-Card Stud Eight-or-Better Event
Beats an Impressive Final Table to Take Home the Gold
By Seth Niesen
Large buy-in mixed-game tournaments generally attract high-profile players, and the final table of the $2,500 Omaha/seven-card stud eight-or-better event did not disappoint. It attracted 327 players, which created a prize pool of $752,500.
Tom Schneider outlasted the field to win the first-place prize of $214,347 and his first
World Series of Poker bracelet. He entered the day leading the pack with $526,000, and he was followed by Annie Duke ($239,000), David Benyamine ($221,000), Chris "Jesus" Ferguson ($193,000), Chris Bell ($213,000), Joseph Bolnick ($104,000), John "The Razor" Phan ($88,000), and Ed Tonnellier ($69,000). It was Schneider's third
WSOP, and he proved the old adage correct, that the third time is a charm.
Schneider needed just an hour to eliminate his final opponent, Tonnellier, whose second-place finish was good for $118,456. Tonnellier is a limit hold'em and Omaha specialist, and he started the final table in last place.
With play down to threehanded, Tonnellier doubled up through Duke and used that momentum to challenge for the bracelet. Schneider was too tough, however, and after he took a massive pot from Tonnellier on the first hand of heads-up play, he never looked back.
Schneider eventually wore Tonnellier down to just three $1,000 chips, which forced him all in every hand. Tonnellier then hit a run of cards, and increased his stack to more than $25,000. In the end, though, Schneider eliminated his opponent and took home
WSOP gold.
Gary Styczynski Wins $1,500 Limit Hold'em Event
A $280,715 Payday is Styczynski's Just Reward
By Ryan Lucchesi
Nine players remained at the start of the final day in the $1,500 limit hold'em event. Up for grabs was a first-place prize of $280,715 and a coveted gold bracelet. These nine had emerged from a field of 910 players who generated a prize pool of $1.2 million.
Two players fell during the first hour of action. The first was Dariush Imani, and then Pete O'Donnell sang his swan song with pocket sixes. Gary Styczynski drew his first blood of the day when he eliminated Michael Banks in seventh place. Styczynski made a Broadway straight on the river to send Banks packing.
James Holland then was eliminated in sixth place when his pocket kings were defeated. Styczynski then tightened his grasp on the final table by eliminating James Gorman and Soheil Shamseddin in succession. With the action down to threehanded, Hansu Chu moved all in with the A
3
against Varouzhan Gumroyan. Chu was in dire straits when Gumroyan turned over the A
10
, and he was eliminated when the board delivered no aid.
The final hand came down a few minutes later when Gumroyan moved all in on a flop of 10
9
5
. Styczynski called and flipped over the J
8
. Gumroyan turned over the A
4
, and the final two cards dealt were the Q
J
. Styczynski won the gold bracelet and took home the first-place prize of $280,715. Gumroyan took home $177,627 for his second-place finish.
Burt Boutin's Energetic Victory
Boutin Wins $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha With Rebuys Event
By Seth Niesen
Burt Boutin is one player who can't hold back his excitement, and he exploded in a flurry of triumphant emotion at the
ESPN televised final table.
Playing in his ninth
World Series of Poker, Boutin won his second bracelet and $868,745. His first was a 2001 win in pot-limit hold'em. Boutin is a well-respected cash-game player and a staple on the tournament circuit. The event attracted 145 players, who made 421 rebuys, to create a prize pool of $2,801,000.
The final table was populated by many top pros. Their chip counts were: David "Devil Fish" Ulliott ($1,700,000), Erik Cajelais ($1,020,000), Larry Jonsson ($800,000), Minh Ly ($365,000), Sirous Jamshidi ($353,000), Boutin ($262,000), John Juanda ($256,000), Humberto Brenes ($200,000), and Robin Keston ($135,000).
Boutin defeated Cajelais heads up, who, like fellow Canadians Gavin Smith and Greg Mueller, finished second in his quest to win
WSOP gold. They entered heads-up play almost even in chips, but the match lasted only six hands. It featured a massive all-in pot on the first hand when Cajelais pushed with middle set and Boutin called with top pair, top kicker and the nut-flush draw. Boutin hit his flush and took down the massive pot to put his win in the record books.
A Battle of Opposites - Part I
Michael Chu Wins $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em With Rebuys Event
By Seth Niesen
Like the opposing forces of yin and yang, the final two players of the $1,000 no-limit hold'em with rebuys event used exactly opposite yet equally effective styles in their heads-up battle for the bracelet.
Winner Michael Chu took down the tournament by playing careful, measured poker, picking his spots to pick up chips. He sat back and let the larger stacks battle while he vigilantly acquired and analyzed information.
His style was a sharp contrast to that of second-place finisher Tommy Vu, who was easily the most aggressive player at the final table. However, in the end, Vu's all-out assault was masterfully countered by Chu, who navigated a field of 884 players who rebought a staggering 1,814 times, creating a prize pool of $2,533,062.
The final table began with Amir Vahedi ($1,360,000), Michael Gracz ($730,000), Dolph Arnold ($520,000), Chu ($480,000), Barry Cales ($420,000), Vu ($344,000), Shane Schleger ($290,000), Robert Aron ($285,000), and Jan Von Halle ($205,000). In the end, only Chu was left standing to claim $575,774 and the gold bracelet.
Second-place finisher Vu used to run infomercials claiming that he could make you rich, but in the end, he helped himself out with a second-place cash of $364,761. Chu said that his parents did not like him playing poker, but with this win, they may have to reconsider.
A Battle of Opposites - Part II
Alex Kravchenko Wins a Personality Face-Off in an Omaha Eight-or-Better Battle of Wits
By Ryan Lucchesi
The final table of the $1,500 Omaha eight-or-better event began with just eight players vying for the first-place prize of $228,466. In the end, a stout Russian defeated a former dealer who is all too familiar with the final-table pressure and glory that the
World Series of Poker brings.
Despite its placement on the island of misfit final tables, the action attracted a group of railbirds.
"We gotta make this feel like a
World Series final table," said Bryan Devonshire. The two players in the heads-up match, Devonshire and Alex Kravchenko, could not have been more different. Devonshire is your basic all-American nice guy; he chats as much with the crowd as he does with the players at his table. Kravchenko is a quiet man, with a stern demeanor. It's a safe bet that you can count the number of times he smiles in a given day on one hand.
Devonshire closed the gap during the first part of their heads-up match. But, that all changed when he lost a $515,000 pot, which put him in all-in mode. He fought hard and survived by making either the high or low hand in many pots.
It all ended, though, when he shoved all of his chips into the middle on a board of Q
Q
4
4
, and flipped over the A
A
8
5
. Kravchenko showed the A
10
9
4
, and the 8
was dealt on the river. Devonshire took home $140,336, while Kravchenko won the gold bracelet and $228,446.
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'TheWacoKidd' Climbs Player of the Year Standings
Jared Hamby has been kicking the butts of online players, but 2007 will be known as the year that live tournament players and fans learned exactly what kind of beast "TheWacoKidd" is.
The 25-year-old Texan has climbed to No. 2 in the
Card Player Player of the Year (POY) standings with 3,573 points, which is only 795 points behind longtime leader and fellow poker beast J.C. Tran.
Hamby's run at the Player of the Year award began in February with an eighth-place finish in the $2,500 no-limit hold'em event at the
L.A. Poker Classic. The $12,815 he won only primed the pump for an astounding three-month run in which he won three tournaments, finished second in the
World Poker Tour Mandalay Bay Poker Championship, and cashed in two more events.
So far, he's won $1.16 million in live tournaments this year.
Hamby has been playing mixed poker games since the age of 13, and he made his first deposit online while he was a student at Baylor University as "TheWacoKidd." He started his poker career by playing low-limit games online before becoming one of the online world's heavyweights.
The thing is, like many of his fellow Internet big dogs, Hamby just started playing live tournaments in 2006. It seems like he figured it out, and that means trouble for those who happen to have drawn a seat at his table.
Look Out!
Juan Carlos Alvarado is creeping up the POY ladder the way that Men "The Master" Nguyen did when he won the
Card Player Player of the Year race in 2006 - by placing in a bunch of smaller events and near the top of some of the biggest tourneys.
He finished eighth in the $10,000
Mandalay Bay Poker Championship, ninth in the $2,500 no-limit hold'em event at the
Five-Star World Poker Classic, second in the $5,000 and $2,500 no-limit hold'em events at the
World Poker Challenge and
L.A. Poker Classic, respectively, and also 15th in the
L.A. Poker Classic championship event.
He sits in 13th place in the POY standings with 2,275 points, and a victory in any
WSOP event will shoot him right to the top of the standings.
Big Time at Bellagio
While the
WSOP rages on just down the road from Bellagio, another big-time tournament series has been going on there. The
Bellagio Cup III is a direct challenger to the
WSOP, marked by its $10,000 championship, which is now a
World Poker Tour event. The championship event starts on July 10; the tournament series started on June 11 with 28 events planned.
With so many big buy-in events taking place this summer at the Rio and Bellagio, the Player of the Year race is bound to undergo some sort of makeover. Whether or not it's drastic depends a lot on the players at the top of the standings. But if we were betting men (and we are), we'd put a bundle on the fact that a player yet unknown to us will break into the top 10 this summer. Chances are that he'll be one of those baby-faced killers weaned on Internet poker.
Online Hand-to-Hand Combat: XTraCey Picks Off a Bluff by Controlling the Pot Size
By Craig Tapscott
Want to study real poker hands with the Internet's most successful players? In this series,
Card Player offers hand analysis with online poker's leading talent. And, as an added bonus, you can check out live video commentary provided by the pros and PokerXfactor.com at www.CardPlayer.com/TV.
Event: PokerStars
Sunday Million
Players: 10,894
First Place: $229,764
Stacks: XTraCey - $9,500; Villain - $10,275
Blinds: $100-$200
Preflop: XTraCey raises from middle position with the A
Q
. Villain calls from the button.
Craig Tapscott: What have you seen the Villain do up to this point?
Tracey "XTraCey" Nguyen: The Villain had been calling a fair number of raises and playing very aggressively post-flop, often raising continuation bets.
Flop: J
9
2
($1,500 pot)
CT: Armed with that info, you decided to check.
TN: Well, I wanted to see what developed. The Villain checked behind, which led me to believe that either my ace high was good or he may have a small pair or perhaps (but not likely, as I believe he probably would have bet it) a flush draw and want to take one off.
Turn: 6
($1,500 pot)
CT: That turn card gives you a lot of options. What's up your sleeve now?
TN: The turn did give me the nut-flush draw. I could've led out with the draw here, but I thought it would be too suspicious of a bet, and an opponent who loved to apply the aggression may put in a big raise. I also didn't want to be potentially bet off such a strong draw or have to play a much bigger pot out of position.
XTraCey checks. Villain bets $675. XTraCey calls.
CT: I see that you chose the conservative route here. What's going through your mind?
TN: He basically gave me odds to call with likely 15 outs, but considering that my ace high was probably still ahead, I thought that this was an automatic call. Some people would choose to check-raise here, which is certainly an option, but just calling enables me to keep the pot small, which is very important without a made hand.
River: 9
($2,850 pot); XTraCey checks. Villain bets $1,400.
CT: Did this bet raise some red flags?
TN: The bet made little sense to me. I had the Villain on no pair, a flush draw, or a low pair on the flop, which should not have improved. Perhaps he could have turned a set, but this was very unlikely. He also could have checked a 9 behind on the flop, but I believed that as aggressively as he was playing, this was unlikely, too.
CT: Perhaps J-10, J-8?
TN: His bet would've made sense with a jack, but I believed there was virtually no chance he would have checked top pair on a draw-heavy flop. If he had a middle to small pocket pair, as long as it wasn't the 6
, I would expect him to check the river. The $1,400 bet would not seem right, as a better hand would call him the vast majority of the time.
CT: Maybe he's trapping with a huge hand?
TN: There was a small chance of him holding a monster, but I really thought he had a missed draw. And based on the 3-1 odds I was getting, and with the range I put him on, this became a certain call.
XTraCey calls $1,400. Villain shows K
Q
for a missed gutshot-straight draw.
XTraCey wins the $5,650 pot with a pair of nines, ace kicker.
CT: How do you use controlling the pot size to your advantage?
TN: Generally speaking, without a huge hand, I always try to keep the pot small. Doing so gives me more options to try to either get value out of mediocre hands on the river or get out as cheaply as possible with missed draws.
Tracey Nguyen seems to make a final table every day that she plays online. So far in 2007, her biggest online cash has been a fifth-place finish in a PokerStars Sunday $1,000 event for $78,000. She has a huge following of railbirds who enjoy watching her knock out the boys.
Action Heats Up in Online Player of the Year Race
By Shawn Patrick Green
Sorel "Imper1um" Mizzi may still be first in the Online Player of the Year (OPOY) standings, but quite a few of the top-10 contenders are outpacing him in a rush to clinch that top spot. Not only that, but a new face has entered the top 10 with a knack for consistently snagging OPOY-qualified finishes.
And now with the
World Series of Poker coming to a close and more than a month of summer still left (read: "school-free time"), many of these Internet poker pros have even more time to devote to the digital felts and have almost six months left to unseat Mizzi.
But I'm sure Mizzi's not worried.
Why Mizzi Should Be Worried
"Andy McLEOD" is just one of the many reasons Mizzi should be breaking a sweat. Andy McLEOD, currently in third place, has racked up 400 more points since the OPOY standings were printed in the last issue, compared to Mizzi's 60 additional points. And that kind of pace is anything but unusual for Andy McLEOD, whose screen names (including TheFatFISH on Full Tilt) have been ubiquitous in the top 20 of major online tournaments for some time.
Andy McLEOD recently took first place in the
Nightly Hundred Grand tournament on PokerStars on June 2 (for $24,000) and fifth in the Bodog $100,000-guaranteed tournament on June 10 (for $5,400, under the screen name Mike HUSSEY). Those two cashes, along with one other final table, took him up to 3,872 OPOY points, which is 1,038 behind Mizzi, the points leader. If he continues to outpace Mizzi at this rate, he could take over the top spot in less than two months.
Newcomer Blazes Into Town
The OPOY top 10 is full of players with huge finishes and consistent cashes. "Puffinmypurp" already had consistent cashes, and the points that went with them, and simply was waiting for a huge finish to vault him into one of those 10 illustrious spots. He finally made it on the list when he bested 2,764 other entrants in the Full Tilt $400,000-guaranteed tournament on June 10, under the screen name "GimmeDa1time," to earn $101,199 and 1,200 OPOY points.
Puffinmypurp now sits with 2,540 points, and given his current success, he easily could lay waste to the OPOY leader board and rise to the top.
Out of the Shadows
Fame in online poker can be a blessing or a curse. That's why Internet legends like "JohnnyBax" took so long to finally divulge their secret identities (it's Cliff Josephy, in case you've been living under a rock for the past few years).
A few of the OPOY contenders' real names were not publicly known for some time, even though their screen names were widely recognized in the online poker community, and they asked
Card Player to keep their identities private. Their reasons for secrecy run the gamut, but two of the players have since changed their minds and given
Card Player the go-ahead to make them Internet poker superstars.
Both Matt "MattSuspect" Molinari and Yevgeniy "Jovial Gent" Timoshenko have come out of hiding and are ready to fully accept their accomplishments in the public sphere (also, they're both taking their game live, and know that being "outed" is inevitable).
Now we're just waiting for newcomer puffinmypurp and top-10 mainstay Andy McLEOD (whose name we know, but we're not tellin') to come out of the shadows and into the limelight.
Online Poker Sites Riding the Wave
Online poker isn't anywhere close to slowing down, and some new tournaments and upped guarantees perfectly illustrate that point. First, PokerStars held its first
Super Tuesday tournament, with a $1,000 buy-in, on May 29. The tournament was undoubtedly inspired by Full Tilt's highly successful
$1K Monday tournament that always attracts big names and generates huge prize pools. The first run of the event at PokerStars lured 356 entrants and featured a heads-up battle between Eric "basebaldy" Baldwin and Gary "GB2005" Bogdanski. Baldwin eventually won the match and pocketed the $89,000 first-place prize.
Full Tilt is riding the wave, as well. The site has upped the guarantee of its major Sunday tournament from $400,000 to $500,000, based on the success that it's had thus far. The tournament has easily been surpassing the $500,000 mark for some time (even the first $400,000-guaranteed tournament had a prize pool of $515,200). Since late 2006/early 2007, Full Tilt's major Sunday tournament had gone from $250,000 to $400,000 before this most recent jump.
Tournament Results, May 28-June 10
PokerStars Sunday Million
June 3
Winner: pokerjoel1
Winnings: $113,416*
Prize pool: $2,412,000
Entrants: 7,060
June 10
Winner: dangdokodang
Winnings: $132,030*
Prize pool: $1,381,000
Entrants: 6,905
* Payout reflects a deal made at the final table.
Full Tilt Poker $400,000 Guarantee
June 3
Winner: CMcAboy
Winnings: $99,515
Prize pool: $543,800
Entrants: 2,719
June 10
Winner: GimmeDa1time
Winnings: $101,199
Prize pool: $553,000
Entrants: 2,765
UltimateBet $200,000 Guarantee
June 3
Winner: ostrichman
Winnings: $45,000
Prize pool: $200,000
Entrants: 934
June 10
Winner: bgizzel
Winnings: $45,000
Prize pool: $200,000
Entrants: 865
Bodog $100,000 Guarantee
June 3
Winner: Daka77
Winnings: $25,000
Prize pool: $100,000
Entrants: 882
June 10
Winner: MMZentner
Winnings: $25,000
Prize pool: $100,000
Entrants: 819
Adam Junglen: Sleight of Hand
By Craig Tapscott
Adam Junglen burst onto the live poker scene after doing battle with Patrik Antonius at the 2007
European Poker Tour Monte Carlo Grand Final. A crucial hand between two big stacks, an amazing read and a more amazing call, would generate a flurry of discussion across online forums. The former professional magician had pulled back the curtain of anonymity that online poker had provided. The spotlight shoved Junglen center stage - live, where the action is.
For players in the know, Junglen, 19, had long been a big tournament winner online; the Monte Carlo event had simply illuminated a brilliant poker mind to the public. Next up on his agenda - compete in as many big buy-in live tournaments worldwide as possible.
"Since Monte Carlo, I'm very motivated to play live," said Junglen. "I don't play as much online anymore. I want that big live win. I used to play a lot of tables at once in multitable tournaments online. Now, in the larger live events, I like focusing on one table. It allows me to think more deeply about the game."
Junglen rolled up his sleeves - no tricks, no illusions - and laid his cards on the table for
Card Player.
Craig Tapscott: How did you develop your thought process during a hand?
Adam Junglen: So many things go into a single poker hand. It's really difficult to convey everything on an online forum discussion. I've been lucky to work with great players who really think deeply about the game: Aaron Been, "Action Jeff," and Jimmy Fricke. You have to play a lot and then discuss hands. It helps to have smart, intelligent friends to throw around ideas. I've learned so much from them.
CT: What was your introduction to poker online?
AJ: The $10 sit-and-gos. But once you get to the higher levels, the edges become very small. For six months, I broke even. I knew there was a lot of money in poker, so I kept at it.
CT: What are some of the weaknesses that you look for online?
AJ: People get too shove-happy with 10 big blinds. Some players think they need to shove from under the gun with 7 high because they need to maintain a stack. At the same time, I don't think people shove enough from late position with similar stacks. They need to better recognize the shove/fold situations.
Again, some of this is standard stuff: playing too many pots from out of position, playing speculative hands from out of position without the adequate implied odds to do so, and defending with a 12-times-the-big-blind stack, out of the blinds, with ace high. Position is so important, and playing those kinds of hands from out of position just isn't profitable.
CT: OK. I have to bring up the hand against Antonius in Monte Carlo. Share your thinking with us.
AJ: I ended up making a big call. I agree that it really looks like a suicidal call on paper (Junglen called an all-in push of $34,750 with only ace high), but there were many dynamics in play, many of which are nearly impossible to convey here. A combination of reading the table dynamics, knowing what my opponent was capable of, previous history, and live reads led me to make a call. I made the greatest call of my life, in the biggest tournament of my life, against one of the greatest players in the world, and got unlucky.
CT: How did you feel afterward?
AJ: I felt fantastic. My reads had been dead-on. I'd been outplaying Patrik all day, and this hand put it over the top. I made the right decisions and didn't care about the results, because I had no control over them. There's no reason to get upset over something you don't have control over. The hand with Patrik didn't faze me one bit. I learned so much from that hand.
CT: Obviously, you handle bad beats better than most.
AJ: You can't get overly invested with your emotions. Sometimes hands just play themselves, and why get upset over things you can't control? I remember getting upset in the past only when I would play higher than my bankroll.
CT: Do you have any advice for dealilng with your bankroll?
AJ: It really depends on a lot of factors. It depends on if you have a real-world job or not, your experience, and your edge. It's a very personal question. You have to know if losing is a big deal to you and if you're afraid of the possible losses. It goes back to bad beats. If you really take one too seriously, you probably are playing higher than your roll.
CT: Great advice. Thanks for your time, Adam.
Card Player Digital
Best Poker Content on the Web
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Coverage and More Coverage
Card Player is the best site to learn what's happening during this poker summer in Vegas. Reporters are covering the
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A Look at Beta
By Dave Apostolico
There are numerous lessons to be learned from investing that are applicable to poker, and vice versa. Every investment decision, just like every poker decision, requires a risk analysis. We all would like to make big money or win pots with minimum risk. Just as risk-free investments generally don't offer much in the way of returns, big stacks are rarely accumulated without taking on some risk.
Beta is a Greek letter. In business terms, it means variability. Something with a high beta has a high variance rate. How is this relevant? Let's say that you are looking at two alternative investment opportunities. Both have the same expected rate of return. However, one has a much higher beta than the other. If that's the case, you will choose the investment with the smaller beta every single time. Now, if the investment opportunity with the higher beta offers a potentially higher rate of return, you may choose that one depending on your risk tolerance. Typically, the greatest returns come from opportunities with a high beta or risk.
How is this relevant to poker? When you are sizing up your opponents, you should understand their betas. Some of your opponents will be fairly predictable and thus have a low beta. Other opponents will vary their play greatly and have a high beta. If that's the case, you should concentrate on playing against those opponents with a lower beta. They are more predictable and you are less likely to get in trouble. You may not win a mountain of chips from them, but you won't often lose your stack, either. The only time you will vary from the low-risk strategy is if you believe your rate of return will be greater going up against those opponents with a high beta and you are willing to tolerate the risk.
How can you judge what your expected rate of return will be? Again, it requires a careful study of your opponent. Many so-called loose-aggressive players with a high beta do not have the high expected rate of return that you may think. These players are often very adept at switching speeds and avoiding traps. What may look like chaotic play on their part is really well orchestrated to help them gain chips. This is a tough style to pull off. Others may just shoot from the hip and are highly loose and aggressive without a master plan. These are the players from which you can expect a higher rate of return. If you can withstand the risk, it may be worth your while to take some shots at these guys.
You still have to be careful with the truly reckless players. We've all seen the type who play extremely loose and will call you down with just about anything. These players have no shot of winning a tournament, but can do a lot of damage while they are in it. They'll eventually give their chips away to someone, and it would be nice if it were you. Against these players, I try to take more chances by seeing more flops than usual, knowing that I can win a lot of chips if I make a hand. Oftentimes I won't even need a great hand to win a decent amount. I will get burned sometimes doing this, but the greater reward is that I win more than my fair share of those free chips to be given away. The sweetest fruit is out on the thinnest branches. You can't be afraid to climb out there.
David Apostolico is the author of numerous poker books, including Lessons from the Felt, Lessons from the Pro Poker Tour, and Tournament Poker and the Art of War. You can contact him at [email protected].
Maximizing Value on the River
By Ezra Galston
CardRunners.com is an online poker community dedicated to improving its members' poker skills. Members enjoy downloadable instructional videos from top poker pros, an active poker forum, articles, live chat, and more. Check out CardRunners today for a free sample video.
It is common for poker players, even good ones, to prioritize their own holdings over their opponents' when making betting decisions. Emphasizing the possible range of your opponents' hands will improve your decisions tremendously and maximize the value you get.
Inducing mistakes from your opponents is integral to what we teach at CardRunners. The style of play that we encourage - loose and aggressive - dictates that you raise a variety of hands in position. Our members learn to reraise not just aces and kings, but also suited connectors, smaller pairs, and other hands at random to confuse opponents and disguise their best holdings.
When we have a hand like A-K on a board of K
K
5
, it seems best to simply bet all three streets, but this type of first-level thought is highly flawed. Unless we have a truly maniacal image, or our opponent is a huge fish, what hands can we possibly expect to get three calls from? We shouldn't simply guess how much we can bet and still get called; we need to think about what our opponent's range of holdings is and what he will do if we bet big, bet small, or check.
Imagine that we're out of position, we raised with the aforementioned A-K hand, and we got a call. We have flopped three kings. We make a substantial continuation-looking bet and get called in tempo. Our opponent's range here is fairly large: He could have the fourth king in the deck, a flush draw, a pocket pair, or a 5. Suppose the turn brings an offsuit 6 and we decide to bet again. Our image is such that we will likely get called again by many hands, and our opponent indeed calls fairly quickly. We can now tighten his range to pairs 9-9 and higher, a smaller king, and a heart draw. The river is an offsuit deuce.
Many players will just overbet all in in this situation, hoping for a call from a smaller king. I believe that against a competent
opponent, this is the absolute worst action. First, a large bet here screams that you have a monster; a thinking opponent might lay down a king here. Additionally, your image would have to be terrible to get paid off by a hand like pocket nines or tens. Also, if our opponent missed a flush draw, he can't call our bet. Meanwhile, the pot is so large that he's basically forced to stab at it if we check the river. Finally, note that in case he does have a smaller, slow-played trip kings, we never lose value by checking in this spot. I have never met a player who is capable of checking behind with a king here.
Thus, in this spot, we gain considerable value by checking, rather than betting, the river. Very few hands can call a large river bet, but missed draws are basically compelled to bluff at the massive pot, and many players will incorrectly value-bet their weaker hands. Given the very thin value-betting that is common in today's high-stakes games, it's not inconceivable that an opponent may value-bet aces or queens on this board, hoping to get called by a smaller pair. Yet this opponent will almost always muck these same hands to a large third barrel, correctly deducing that you're extremely unlikely to be making three bets from out of position without the king.
Double-Stacked With Insight
By Tim Peters
The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide: Tournament Edition, edited by Michael Craig (Warner Books, $29.99)
I rarely start to read a new book late in the evening, and when I do, I hope it's bad. If it's bad, I can be confident of getting some sleep, but if it's good, I know it's going to be a long night. I lost a lot of sleep after cracking open this terrific new volume on tournament strategy. With 19 chapters by a dozen Full Tilt professionals,
The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide is a fantastic, multidimensional educational resource for anyone interested in tournament poker - probably the best book on tournament play since Volume II of Dan Harrington's trilogy from Two Plus Two (
Harrington on Hold'em: The Endgame).
The book is edited by Michael Craig, author of
The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King (the story of the epic heads-up battle between "The Corporation" and billionaire banker Andy Beal). As he acknowledges in his lucid introduction on "The Role of Books in Poker," the model for the book is Doyle Brunson's groundbreaking
Super/System: "gathering great players (and great thinkers) and collecting their ideas." This he has done in spades:
• Chris "Jesus" Ferguson articulates the value of aggression preflop and the challenge of aggression post-flop. He also writes a very helpful chapter on pot-limit Omaha.
• Howard "The Professor" Lederer offers two brilliant analyses, one on the concept of leverage in no-limit hold'em ("the potential and threat of more bets on later streets"), the second, a strategic approach to limit hold'em tournaments.
• Andy "The Rock" Bloch supplies a powerful, analytically rigorous framework for preflop play. This chapter alone is worth the price of the book.
• Phil "Tiltboy" Gordon summarizes multiple strategies for playing with a short stack.
• Mike "The Mouth" Matusow outlines an interesting perspective on the early (that is, passive) phase and the later (much more aggressive) phase that characterize Omaha eight-or-better tournaments.
I love Omaha, so I was particularly pleased that the book ranges beyond hold'em. In addition to the two chapters on Omaha, Keith Sexton, David Grey, Ted Forrest, and Huckleberry Seed all contributed chapters about stud poker (including razz). And there is much, much more.
Most of the advice in this book is immediately and practically useful, and by that I mean that it can be easily adopted by aspiring players. A couple of chapters, however, are more challenging for the inexperienced. The advice from Ted "Professor Backwards" Forrest, for example, is not for the faint of heart, though he makes a vital point when he writes that "fundamentals aren't absolutes. There are ways to succeed where you contradict the fundamentally correct approach." And Gavin Smith's aggressive style is very difficult to replicate for those with limited post-flop experience or sub-par reading skills. Still, it's important to learn how to "steal early, steal often" - and to avoid the "courtesy double-up" when you get caught.
I stayed up much too late reading
The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide, as I kept finding new insights and ideas I wanted to explore. But I knew the real work would begin
after I'd finished the first read. I plan to write about this topic in the future, but instructional books must be
studied, not just read. You need to actively engage your mind with the material, and for me, that means taking notes, working through the math, talking about concepts with other players, and trying tactics out on the felt.
That's how you turn poker
reading into poker
results. My first read was sufficient to write this review, but I suspect that I'll be spending months with this book - and I know that it will be time well spent. A good poker book is a road map to poker success, and this one definitely has accelerated my journey.
